The death of Dantrell Davis

Police officers, a parent patrol and even his mother could not shield Dantrell Davis from a gang member's stray gunshot. Dantrell Davis died Oct. 13, 1992, after being shot on the way to school.

Police officers, a parent patrol and even his mother could not shield Dantrell Davis from a gang member's stray gunshot. Dantrell Davis died Oct. 13, 1992, after being shot on the way to school. (Tribune archive photo)

Joseph A. KirbyChicago Tribune

Dantrell Davis, a lively 7-year-old with an electric smile, was crossing the street to attend classes at Jenner Elementary School, just 100 feet from his apartment building.

But in the Cabrini-Green public-housing complex where he lived, every step was fraught with danger, and innocence could provide no shield against violence. Neither could the police officers who sat in a squad car near the school this morning. Helpless, too, was the volunteer parent patrol that watched for trouble. Not even Dantrell's mother, who held his hand tightly as they crossed the street, could protect her son.A stray bullet fired by a sniper in a nearby building tore through the boy's head and killed him.

Dantrell was one of 61 children killed in Chicago in 1992. Yet his death was the year's most symbolic. For many in Chicago and across the nation, Dantrell's slaying epitomized one of the worst problems in American society: Crime had run amok in urban America and no one, not even the smallest child, was safe.

Much of the bloodshed was caused by the growth of gangs. Gangs transformed communities into illegal drug markets and recruited young children into their ranks. Relationships with families frayed, but teens' ties to gangs thrived. Armed with high-powered handguns, teens created carnage that denied some peers the chance to live beyond puberty.

This cycle of violence spurred the Tribune to chronicle the death of every child under age 15 in 1993 as part of the series "Killing Our Children." The articles sought to shed light on the victims and their short--and, at times, troubled--lives. Sixty-two children were killed that year.

"The unceasing proliferation of handgun violence in Chicago and across the U.S. is a national disgrace," the paper said in an editorial (one in a series on children and violence that earned the 1993 Pulitzer Prize for editorial writing).

Police arrested Anthony Garrett for Dantrell's death. He was a gang member seeking revenge, authorities said. From a 10th-story window, he fired a burst of bullets from an assault-style weapon at rivals in front of Dantrell's building. Dantrell was the only one hit.

He was convicted and sentenced to 100 years in prison.

But the cycle of violence became, if anything, more appalling. In 1994, Robert "Yummy" Sandifer, an 11-year-old gang member, killed a girl, 14, on the city's South Side while trying to shoot a rival gang member. A few days later, he was dead himself, executed by two fellow gang members, ages 14 and 16.